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Finland national football team

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Finland
Shirt badge/Association crest
Nickname(s)Huuhkajat ("Eurasian Eagle Owls")
AssociationFootball Association of Finland
(Suomen Palloliitto, Finlands Bollförbund)
ConfederationUEFA (Europe)
Head coachEngland Roy Hodgson, 2006-
CaptainJari Litmanen
Most capsJari Litmanen (109)
Top scorerJari Litmanen (28)
Home stadiumHelsinki Olympic Stadium
FIFA codeFIN
First colours
Second colours
FIFA ranking
Current44
Highest33 (March 2007)
Lowest79 (December 1996)
First international
Finland Finland 2 - 5 Sweden Sweden
(Helsinki, Finland; October 22, 1911)
Biggest win
Finland Finland 10 - 2 Estonia Estonia
(Helsinki, Finland; August 11, 1922)
Biggest defeat
Germany Germany 13 - 0 Finland Finland
(Leipzig, Germany; September 1, 1940)
Appearances(first in -)
Best result-
Appearances(first in -)
Best result-

The Finland national football team represents Finland in international football competitions and is controlled by the Football Association of Finland.

The Finnish national team has never qualified for a finals tournament of the World Cup or the European Championships, but has made four Olympic tournament appearances. It was considered one of the weakest teams in Europe in past decades; especially at a time when many of today's smallest nations didn't yet compete in international football. Finland is one of the few European countries where football is not the most popular spectator sport, and the game has traditionally been played on an amateur basis in the country. Only in the last decade – after the Bosman ruling and the removal of foreign quotas in the EU region – have Finnish players had significant opportunities to play in the continent's top leagues. Today, nearly all regular members of the national team play outside of Finland.

History

The Football Association of Finland was founded as early as 1907 and became a member of FIFA in 1908, despite the fact that at that time Finland was still an autonomous grand duchy of the Russian Empire and didn't gain independence until 1917. Finland played its first international match on October 22, 1911, losing to neighbours Sweden 2-5 in Helsinki.

A fourth place finish at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm still arguably ranks as the country's best ever achievement in international football. Finland beat Italy and Russia in the first two rounds before losing to Great Britain in the semi-finals. In the bronze medal match they were beaten 0-9 by the Netherlands. According to the story, the Finns were under the impression that the match would be a day later, so they had gone out celebrating the night before the match, and as a consequence were easily beaten. Finland's star player Eino Soinio, aged only 17 at the time, was chosen to the all-star team of the tournament by Swedish paper Idrottsbladet.

Finland also took part in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, but was beaten by Peru in the first round. The country sought qualification for the World Cup for the first time in the 1938 event, but failed to score a single point. The fortunes of the team didn't improve much in the 1950s or 1960s: they were never near qualification, and didn't achieve their first win until 1965. Finland also took part in European Championship qualifying since the 1968 event, but had to wait for its first win until 1978. The 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki saw the hosts crash to Austria in the first round. Finland did, however, win the unofficial Nordic championship in 1952, 1964 and 1966.

The results of the team improved somewhat in the late 1970s and the 1980s. Finland missed out on qualification for Euro 1980 by just a point and for the 1986 World Cup by two points. Finland was invited to take part in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow after many Western countries announced they would boycott the games, but failed to progress from its group.

By the mid-1990s Finland started to have more players in high profile European leagues, led by the Ajax superstar Jari Litmanen. In 1996 Danish Euro 1992 winning coach Richard Møller Nielsen was hired to take Finland to the 1998 World Cup. The team enjoyed mixed fortunes in the campaign, highpoints of which were a draw and a win away to Norway and Switzerland respectively. Going into the last match, Finland would have needed a win at home to Hungary to earn a place in the play-offs. They led the game 1-0 going into injury time, but scored an own goal, and once again the dreams of qualification were over. Møller Nielsen also tried to lead Finland to Euro 2000. In this campaign the Finns recorded a sensational win away to Turkey, but couldn't compete with Germany and Turkey in the long run.

Antti Muurinen succeeded Møller Nielsen as coach in 2000. He had arguably the most talented group of Finnish players ever at his disposal, including players such as Antti Niemi, Sami Hyypiä, Teemu Tainio and Mikael Forssell in addition to the legendary Litmanen. The team also performed quite well under him in qualification for the 2002 World Cup despite a difficult draw, earning two draws against Germany and a home draw with England as well as beating Greece 5-1 in Helsinki. In the end, however, England and Germany proved too strong, and the Finns finished third in the group. Hopes were high going into qualification for Euro 2004 after the promising last campaign and friendly wins over the likes of Norway, Belgium and Portugal. However, Finland started the campaign by losing to Wales and Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro, now two separate nations). These losses were followed by two defeats by Italy, and a 3-0 home win over Serbia and Montenegro was little consolation, as the Finns finished fourth in the group. In qualification for the 2006 World Cup Finland failed to score a single point in six matches against the top three teams in their group, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Romania. Muurinen was sacked in June 2005, and he was replaced by caretaker Jyrki Heliskoski, but results didn't improve.

In August 2005 it was announced that Roy Hodgson would become the new Finland coach in 2006, and he started in the job in January of that year. The Englishman becomes the second high profile foreign coach in recent history of the country, as he tries to lead the team to its first ever major championship qualification.

Euro 2008 Qualification

Finland is currently competing in Group A in qualification for UEFA Euro 2008, together with Portugal, Poland, Serbia, Belgium, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. The team started the campaign very well, beating Poland 3-1 away and earning a 1-1 draw with Portugal at home. The Finns then gained four points from their difficult away ties against Armenia and Kazakhstan, drawing 0-0 with the former and beating the latter 2-0. On 15th of November, 2006 Finland beat Armenia 1-0 at home, thus remaining undefeated in the qualifying. In Finland's first match of 2007, they were in poor form when they lost against Azerbaijan 1-0, one of the worst matches in Finnish footballing history. On early June they lost to Serbia 2-0 at home, which many fans felt being the end of a real battle for qualification. But the next match was against Belgium and team Finland gained the trust of their fans back by winning 2-0 at home. Belgium match had its own amusements when an eagle-owl (which is named as Bubi referring to eagle owl's binomal name Bubo bubo, as well as famous football commentator Bror-Erik Wallenius) landed to arena and then flew few rounds above the audience, stopping the game for 6 minutes. Afterwards, the eagle owl has been considered a "mascot" for Finnish national team.

Last and next games

Finland currently ranks somewhere around the middle class in the UEFA region. It regularly beats the lowest-ranked teams, and can occasionally perform well against the stronger teams. It has not, however, yet found enough consistency against the top nations to truly push for qualification.

Stadiums

Most of Finland's important home matches are played at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium in the capital Helsinki. It has been Finland's principal home stadium ever since its construction was completed in 1938. Before that Pallokenttä in Helsinki was mainly used.

Today, some qualifying matches against lower profile opponents and some friendlies are hosted at the Ratina Stadion in Tampere. Helsinki's Finnair Stadium, which has artificial turf, is also used for some friendlies.

World Cup record

European Championship record

Current squad

Updated 2007-08-23.

No. Pos. Player Date of birth (age) Caps Goals Club
2 2DF Petri Pasanen September 24, 1980 39 1 Germany SV Werder Bremen
4 2DF Sami Hyypiä October 7, 1973 84 5 England Liverpool
5 2DF Hannu Tihinen July 1, 1976 58 4 Switzerland FC Zürich
7 3MF Mika Nurmela December 26, 1971 68 4 Finland HJK
8 3MF Teemu Tainio November 27, 1979 37 6 England Tottenham Hotspur
9 4FW Mikael Forssell March 15, 1981 48 16 England Birmingham City
11 3MF Joonas Kolkka September 28, 1974 78 11 Netherlands NAC Breda
12 1GK Magnus Bahne March 15, 1979 2 0 Sweden Halmstad BK
16 3MF Aki Riihilahti September 9, 1976 67 11 Sweden Djurgårdens IF
18 4FW Shefki Kuqi November 10, 1976 49 5 England Fulham F.C.
19 2DF Toni Kallio August 9, 1978 31 1 Switzerland BSC Young Boys
20 3MF Alexei Eremenko jr March 24, 1983 29 12 Russia FC Saturn
21 4FW Jonatan Johansson August 16, 1975 79 14 Sweden Malmö FF
22 1GK Jussi Jääskeläinen April 19, 1975 37 0 England Bolton Wanderers
23 3MF Markus Heikkinen October 13, 1978 30 0 Austria SK Rapid Wien
24 3MF Daniel Sjölund April 22, 1983 10 1 Sweden Djurgårdens IF
28 2DF Ari Nyman February 7, 1984 14 0 Switzerland FC Thun
32 3MF Roman Eremenko March 19, 1987 2 0 Italy Udinese Calcio

Recent call-up

The following players have all recently been called up to the Finland squad for the Euro 2008 qualifying.

No. Pos. Player Date of birth (age) Caps Goals Club
1GK Mikko Kavén February 19, 1975 15 0 Finland Tampere United
1GK Peter Enckelman March 10, 1977 7 0 England Blackburn Rovers
2DF Juha Pasoja November 16, 1976 12 0 Norway Ham-Kam
3MF Markus Paatelainen January 23, 1983 0 0 Scotland Inverness Caledonian Thistle
3MF Pekka Lagerblom October 19, 1982 12 0 Germany Alemannia Aachen
3MF Jarkko Wiss April 17, 1972 43 3 Finland Tampere United

Coaching staff

Famous past players

     

Player records

Most capped players

# Name Career Caps Goals
1 Jari Litmanen 1989- 108 28
2 Ari Hjelm 1983-96 100 20
3 Sami Hyypiä 1992- 84 5
4 Erkka Petäjä 1983-94 83 0
5 Jonatan Johansson 1996- 79 14
6 Joonas Kolkka 1994- 78 11
7 Arto Tolsa 1964-81 76 10
8 Mika-Matti Paatelainen 1986-2000 70 18
9 Esko Ranta 1971-80 69 0
10 Juhani Peltonen 1955-70 68 11

Top goalscorers

# Name Career Goals Caps
1 Jari Litmanen 1989- 28 108
2 Ari Hjelm 1983-96 20 100
3 Mika-Matti Paatelainen 1986-2000 18 70
4 Verner Eklöf 1919-27 17 32
5 Mikael Forssell 1999- 16 47
= Aulis Koponen 1924-35 16 39
= Gunnar Åström 1923-37 16 44
8 Jonatan Johansson 1994- 14 79
= William Kanerva 1922-38 13 51
= Jorma Vaihela 1947-54 13 33
  • Correct as of August 23, 2007
  • Players who are still active and available for selection are in bold.

Coaches

Coach Career Matches Wins Draws Losses
No coach 1911-21 17 6 2 9
Jarl Öhman 1922 4 1 0 3
No coach 1923-35 77 22 12 43
Ferdinand Fabra Germany 1936-37 8 1 1 6
No coach 1937-38 9 3 0 6
Gábor Obitz Hungary 1939 6 1 0 5
No coach 1939-43 7 0 1 6
Axel Mårtensson Sweden 1945 2 0 0 2
Niilo Tammisalo 1946 3 0 0 3
Aatos Lehtonen 1947-55 51 7 9 35
Kurt Weinreich Germany 1955-58 23 3 1 19
Aatos Lehtonen 1959-61 19 3 0 16
Olavi Laaksonen 1962-74 91 16 21 54
Martti Kosma 1975 2 0 1 1
Aulis Rytkönen 1975-78 30 8 4 18
Esko Malm 1979-81 27 4 6 17
Martti Kuusela 1982-87 53 9 11 33
Jukka Vakkila 1988-92 48 7 21 20
Tommy Lindholm 1993-94 25 5 7 13
Jukka Ikäläinen 1994-96 21 7 4 10
Richard Møller Nielsen Denmark 1996-99 34 9 12 13
Antti Muurinen 2000-05 72 34 12 26
Jyrki Heliskoski 2005 6 2 2 2
Roy Hodgson England 2006- 11 2 6 3

See also

References

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